Free Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) by Shirl Henke Page B

Caleb have red hair?” Melanie asked innocently.
           “If he didn't, your aunt would be in pretty big trouble by now,” Rafe answered, and they all three laughed, breaking the tension and holding the past at bay.
           They spent a delightful but exhausting evening with the Armstrong clan. Rafe's sister and brother-in-law and their children welcomed Melanie warmly, accepting the child of Rafe's mistress as openly as they accepted Deborah's natural children.
           When they returned to the Flamenco house, Melanie was glad to sink into the soft bed in the room down the hall from her parents. Her five-year-old sister, Norrie, was already asleep next to her, and their brothers, Adam and Caleb, were doubtless drifting off next door; but Melanie lay awake ruminating.
           Ever since she had come to live with her father and Deborah in Texas, she had been loved unconditionally, just as her grandmother and aunt had loved her back in St. Louis before their deaths. For the past four years, her Grandfather Adam had loved her in Boston. But after meeting Grandmère Celine and sensing the animosity radiating from the old woman, Melanie felt like an outcast.
           Melanie had been born in this city, only a few miles distant, in a small white house on Rampart Street, a house she now legally owned. That's really it. It isn't the color bar in New Orleans or the dislike of a grandmother I never knew. Even my being illegitimate isn't the real hurt. It's Mère. Melanie lay very still as the thoughts washed over her in a tidal wave of fresh pain, like a newly opened wound, long suppurating and now freshly lanced. Willing herself not to cry and awaken her little sister, Melanie vowed to visit Lily Duval's house on the morrow.
     
    * * * *
     
           “Are you certain you want to do this?” Deborah asked as the carriage pulled up in front of the small white house.
           “Are you certain you do?” Melanie countered, remembering the painful confrontation between Deborah and Lily that she had witnessed all those years ago.
           “Let's go,” Deborah replied as she gave Melanie’ s hand a squeeze.
           The house was much as her little girl's eyes had remembered it, expensively decorated and cluttered with too many pieces of doll-like furniture. Porcelain figurines and a silver tea service sat on delicately lacquered French provincial table-tops. Heavy brocade draperies were drawn against the sun. Despite the shade from several tall willows outside, the place was stifling with the musky aromas of perfume and death.
           Both women were lost in the past as they walked inside, recalling old hurts. Here Deborah had confronted her husband's mistress and had discovered that he already had two children by Lily when she had just become pregnant for the first time. Despite the passage of years and the constancy of her husband's love, Deborah still felt the pain when she remembered Melanie as a small child rushing innocently into the midst of the bitter fight between wife and mistress. That child had been hurt most of all. Looking over at Melanie, Deborah said softly, “Let's go through her things and you select what you want to take home. Then the lawyers can sell the rest. You need never come here again, dear heart.”
           Melanie looked around and made a small moue of disgust. “She loved expensive trinkets—china, porcelain, silver, jewelry. Although I expect we're the same size, I don't want her clothes. I know that,” Melanie said with finality.
           Although Melanie's overly plain and sensible wardrobe was a continual frustration to Deborah, she knew the ‘‘bird of paradise” clothes of a kept woman would be completely unsuitable for her gently reared girl.
           They spent several hours going through the small house room by room. Lily's husband had been a fencing master, killed in an affair of honor with another Free Man of